Change the region of your Xbox Live account

Overview

If you’re moving to another country or region, you might have to change the region associated with your Xbox Live account. When you change the region of your Xbox Live account, some things are unaffected, like your profile. Other things are potentially affected, such as:

How to change your region

On the “Moving your Xbox Live account” page, select the region you’re moving your account to, then click I Accept.

Conditions that prevent you from changing your region

You won’t be able to change your region if any of the following conditions apply:

You changed regions within the last three months.

Your account is currently suspended (for example, if the credit card on one of your memberships has expired).

You have an Xbox 360 Entertainment For All contract.

You are a minor (as defined by applicable law) in your current region and will not be a minor in the region that you want to change to.

You are currently not a minor (as defined by applicable law) in your current region and will become a minor in the region that you want to change to.

Profile

You can change from one region to another without changing your gamerscore, achievements, friends, or other parts of your Xbox profile.

Content you’ve already bought

Before you move your account, make sure that you’ve downloaded any avatar items, games, game add-ons, and video content that you’ve bought. No digital content is guaranteed to work after the migration, and there are no refunds if items stop working because you change your account region.

Content you’ve bought may continue to work on any Xbox 360 device if the content has a valid license. If that content gets deleted or you change consoles, you may be able to redownload the content and reacquire a license for it in the new region, but some content (mostly video content) is only allowed in certain countries and regions. This content may be blocked in your new region because of licensing or regional restrictions.

Funds in your Microsoft Account

The funds in your Microsoft account will not move with you, so be sure to spend your money before you change your account location.

TV and other services

Some services you use now might not be available in your new region. To get information about services, such as TV providers, that are available in a specific region, go to the Xbox.com website for that region.

Here’s how to find the website for a specific region:

At the bottom of any Xbox.com page, click the name of your current region in the lower-left corner.

On the Set Your Default Country or Region page, click the region that interests you. You’ll be taken to the Xbox website for that region.

Xbox Live Gold Membership

Any time left on your Xbox Live Gold Membership will be moved with your account to the new region.

If Xbox Live Gold Memberships aren’t available in your new region, your current Xbox Live Gold Membership will remain active but might not work anymore.

Cancel the membership at your My account page to stop recurring billing for the membership if you find that it can’t be used in your new region.

If you can use it in your new region, go to your My account page and update your membership with a payment option that works in your new region. If you don’t make this update, your Xbox Live Gold Membership will be canceled after you’ve used up your remaining paid time.

Xbox Music Pass

When you migrate your account, your Xbox Music Pass will be affected in the following ways:

Your Music Pass is immediately and automatically canceled.

You won’t be able to listen to music you’ve downloaded, stream music, or use any other features of the pass once the current license has expired.

You won’t be able to use other features of the Music Pass.

However, you can:

Purchase a new Xbox Music Pass by going to your My account page. You’ll need a payment method that works in your new region.

Resubscribe to these services in the new region (if those services are available there).

To make sure that your new pass works correctly, we strongly recommend that you manually delete all previously downloaded content from your devices (phones, computers, Xbox consoles) before you buy a pass in the new region.

Other notes about migrating to a new region:

After migration, your cloud collection will be updated with new rights no more than eight hours after you sign in.

Unused “keepers” (the 10 songs you are allowed to download) for the current month, and potential remaining ones, will be lost.

All devices associated with the Music Pass will be removed, and you will have to add each of them back.

You may be unable to redownload past purchases because of rights loss in the new country or region. (For example, a song purchased in one region may not be available in the new region.)

If you change regions to one that does not have Music Pass available, you will be unable to obtain a Music Pass (even for the previous region).

On Windows Phone 8, you may be unable to read subscribed content in the new region until the license expires in the former region.

Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7 customers may have to reset their phones to the original manufacturer settings to delete any digital rights management (DRM) licenses from the previous region.

Important A reset deletes all personal data and restores your phone to the state it was in when you purchased it.

For more information about how to back up and restore your information and perform a “hard reset” of your phone, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

Other subscriptions

If you have other subscriptions (like XNA Creator’s Club, Call of Duty Elite, or Monster Hunter), your subscriptions will remain active in the new region but might not work any longer. If you have recurring billing, you will still be charged until you cancel the subscription by going to your My account page.

Child accounts

An Xbox Live child account can move to a new region even if the parent account stays in its original region. But the parent will still have to accept the Terms of Use in the new region on the child’s behalf.

If the child is a minor (as defined by applicable law) in one region but isn’t a minor in the other region, the account can’t be moved between those regions.

A parent account can move to a new region, even if the child account stays in its region.

Signing in to an unsupported region

If you sign in to the Xbox Music app in Windows 8 using an account associated with an unsupported region, you may not be able to switch back to your account. For instance, if a friend who has an el-GR account signs in to show you some of her content, the option to sign out and switch back to your own account may not be available because el-GR is an unsupported region.

To fix this, uninstall and reinstall the Music app.

To uninstall the Music app:

On the Start screen, right-click the Music app.

Tap or click Uninstall at the bottom of the screen.

A message window will pop up, to confirm. Tap or click Uninstall.

To reinstall the Music app:

From the Start screen, tap or click Store.

Type “Music.”

The Music app should appear in the search results, most likely under “Recommendations.” Tap or click it.